Danny Platt of New Orleans, Louisiana is among the most incredibly sadistic alleged murderers I have ever read about in my entire 64 years of life. But then again, he is simply acting out what thousands of people do daily in America.
Who is Danny Platt? He is a 22-year-old father who was ordered by the court to pay child support for his two-year-old son, Ja Shawn Powell. Platt was behind in his payments. According to news reports, he was on record as saying that rather than pay child support, he would kill either his wife or his son.
On Saturday, January 3, Danny Platt was arrested and charged with first-degree murder. He confessed to killing his son. In a news report he states, "I'm sorry about killing my baby. And I'm sorry for the family that I caused trouble with."
While it is truly heartbreaking to read this report and realize that a little boy has apparently died a horrible death at the hands of his own father, it seems to me that, if this is true, it is but another example of how the culture of death has made it easy to solve problems by employing acts of violence.
We all know, whether we admit it or not, that abortion is undoubtedly the most heinous form of child abuse known to man and a frequent underlying cause of other forms of child abuse. Yet widespread abortion continues unabated.
As Theresa Karminsky Burke, Ph.D. and David C. Reardon, Ph.D. make clear in their article "When the Doll Breaks,"
Experts agree that during past the 25 years the rate of child abuse has increased dramatically. Between 1976 and 1987, alone, there was a 330% increase in the reported cases of child abuse. While a portion of this increase is due to better reporting, experts agree that these figures reflect a real trend toward ever higher rates of abuse.
These figures clearly contradict the claim of pro-abortionists that abortion of "unwanted children" prevents child abuse. Ignoring the obvious illogic of this argument – which suggests that killing children is better than beating them – there is not a single scientific study that supports this theory. Instead, there is a clear statistically association between increased rates of abortion and increased rates of child abuse. Indeed, statistical and clinical research support not only an association, but causal connection between abortion and subsequent child abuse.
Further, a published study involving 518 participants, entitled "Associations between voluntary and involuntary forms of perinatal loss and child maltreatment among low-income mothers," by Priscilla K. Coleman, Charles D. Maxey, Vincent M. Rue and Catherine T. Coyle, asserts the following in its summary:
Compared to women with no history of perinatal loss, those with one loss (voluntary or involuntary) had a 99% higher risk for child physical abuse, and women with multiple losses were 189% more likely to physically abuse their children. Compared to women with no history of induced abortion, those with one prior abortion had a 144% higher risk for child physical abuse. Finally, maternal history of multiple miscarriages and/or stillbirths compared to no history was associated with a 1237% increased risk of physical abuse and a 605% increased risk of neglect.
It would seem obvious that children who are viewed to be either "unwanted" or "inconvenient" are children whose lives are at risk, not only prior to birth but well after that as well. And while some might want to avoid this fact and argue that Danny Platt's alleged action has nothing to do with the massive numbers of abortions that occur in this nation daily, I would disagree.
What Platt is accused of exemplifies how far this culture has sunk into the depravity resulting from 35-plus years of solving problems by intentionally murdering preborn children prior to birth. The callous disregard for the dignity of the human being who is not seen, but makes his presence known in a variety of ways, was and is a precursor to the horrors that are now part of everyday life and exemplified by Platt's alleged action.
When an international women's magazine, A – The Abortion Magazine can explore "how abortion-rights advocates, acting as human-rights advocates, become part of a larger, united movement to promote the equality of all people," something is fundamentally askew.
While it may seem inconceivable to some that the act of killing a preborn child could ever be perceived as a human right, the ideology that supports this concept is the very ideology that drives mothers to kill the flesh of their flesh. It is what drives parents to abuse their children and drives older children to support the act of euthanizing their own parents.
It is obvious that mankind is headed down a destructive path that can only be reversed by a total conversion of attitude among human beings toward their fellow human beings and their innate dignity, regardless of their size, age or condition of dependency. As Pope John Paul II taught so eloquently in The Gospel of Life (#19),
[E]very man is his brother's keeper, because God entrusts us to one another. And it is also in view of this entrusting that God gives everyone freedom, a freedom which possesses an inherently relational dimension. This is a great gift of the Creator, placed as it is at the service of the person and of his fulfillment through the gift of self and openness to others; but when freedom is made absolute in an individualistic way, it is emptied of its original content, and its very meaning and dignity are contradicted.
A human right cannot possibly be equated with a right to murder an innocent baby, whether born or preborn. There can never be, in a civilized society, a right to do wrong, a right to kill, a right to demonize some people for the express self-interest of others.
Danny Platt has allegedly acted in violence, but if we are truly honest, we would have to admit that Danny Platt lives in a nation steeped in violence. Inspired by the memory of Platt's son, Ja Shawn, let us strive as never before to focus attention on the brotherhood of man, including the youngest of our fellow human beings.